Digital Legacy: How to Plan What You Leave Behind

Your digital legacy is everything of yours that exists online or on your devices. That means accounts, photos and videos, messages, money and subscriptions, and your own words and voice.

Planning it comes down to two questions for each thing: who should be able to reach it, and what should happen to it.

It depends on the company, because each one sets its own rules.

• Google says it may delete an account that has been inactive for at least two years.
• Facebook profiles can be memorialized. If you chose a legacy contact, they can look after the profile, but they still cannot log in.
• Instagram can memorialize a profile when someone reports the death with proof, such as a link to an obituary. It does not give anyone else login access.

Start with a plain list. For each item, note whether you would like it kept, passed to someone, or closed.

• Phones, computers and tablets
• Email accounts
• Photos, videos and cloud storage
• Social media and messaging accounts
• Banks, payment apps, investments and any cryptocurrency
• Paid subscriptions
• Websites and domain names you own
• Journals, voice notes and anything else you made yourself

Keep the list somewhere safe, and tell one trusted person where it is.

These are the main options, as each company describes them on its help pages. They change, so check the current page when you set one up.

• Apple Legacy Contact. You choose someone who can request access to data in your Apple Account after your death. They need the access key you created and your death certificate. Apple says the data might include photos, messages, notes, files and device backups. It excludes purchased movies, music, books and subscriptions, and the passwords, payment information and passkeys in iCloud Keychain. Adding a contact requires iOS 15.2, iPadOS 15.2, macOS Monterey 12.1 or later.
• Google Inactive Account Manager. You set how long Google should wait after your account goes inactive, then choose up to 10 people to notify or share data with. You can share everything or only some data types, though Google says some information cannot be shared.
• Facebook legacy contact. This person can look after your memorialized profile: pin a post, respond to friend requests, update the profile picture and cover photo, download a copy of what you shared if you turned that on, and delete the account. They cannot log in, edit or remove past posts, read messages or remove friends.
• Instagram memorialization. Someone reports the death with proof. A memorialized account cannot be changed, and posts stay visible to the audience they were shared with. Immediate family can instead ask for removal, which requires birth and death certificates and proof of authority under local law.
• Password managers. Bitwarden's emergency access is a premium feature. A trusted contact with a Bitwarden account can request view or takeover access, and is held to a wait time you set unless you approve sooner. 1Password recommends giving a copy of your Emergency Kit to someone you trust.

A digital executor is a plain-language term for the person you trust to carry out your wishes for your accounts and files. Choose someone comfortable with technology, ask them first, and tell them where your list is. If you are already looking after a parent and these questions are coming up, our guide to caregiving covers the strain of that role.

Laws vary by country and, in the US, by state, so the two examples below may not apply to you. This is general information, not legal advice.

• United States. The Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act is a 2015 model law that states can adopt. Under its text, a direction you give in a platform's online tool overrides a contrary direction in your will, as long as the tool lets you change or delete that direction at any time. If you have not used such a tool, your will can allow or prohibit disclosure.
• New South Wales, Australia. NSW Trustee & Guardian suggests including a list of your social media accounts in your will, with directions for how each should be handled, so your executor can find, secure and close them.

An account list tells people what you had. It does not tell them how you sounded, or what you thought was funny, or why a decision mattered to you. Those things are only kept if you record them.

Grief researchers use the term continuing bonds for the inner relationship people keep with someone who has died, through memories, communication and beliefs. A 2023 systematic review included 79 of 319 screened studies. Its authors found adaptive potential in these bonds, and one of the three themes they identified was comfort and distress, which means both turned up.

An earlier review reached a more cautious conclusion: it could not say that either continuing or relinquishing bonds is generally helpful, and it called for work on how and for whom each one helps.

We found no peer-reviewed study testing whether listening to a recording of someone's voice helps with grief. So we cannot tell you that it does. The case for recording is simpler: a voice cannot be kept if it was never recorded. If you are carrying a loss yourself, our guide to loneliness may help, and persistent grief belongs with a doctor or a bereavement service.

This is the idea behind Echo, which we are building for Phi Journal. Echo is in build. Recording is live today.

1. Write the list. Use the inventory above. An unfinished list is still useful.
2. Set up one tool and tell one person. Start with Apple Legacy Contact or Google Inactive Account Manager, whichever holds more of your life.
3. Record 60 seconds. Say one thing you would want someone to hear, in your own words. Any voice recorder works, or see how Echo works.